Let me know what other subjects you’d like me to cover in future posts; this blog is for you!

Too much trash

I’ve been reading a mix of modern classics, novels, and trash this past month, but I’m getting tired of the trash. What a waste of time. I was given a set of six ebooks (cozy mystery series) in order to write a review, but they’re so bad that the only way to describe them is inedible. I mean, I’ll usually read anything, but this is just too painful. Here are the books’ main sins:

Shallow, undeveloped, and inconsistent characters

Canned dialogue and situations

Poor, confusing, unrealistic plots lacking essential information

Embarrassing spelling, grammar, and editing mistakes

These issues seem to be rampant in self-published ebooks. Granted, quality is uneven, so it’s best to get a free sample from Kindle before purchasing. (Sometimes, the first book in a series is free, so there’s no monetary investment if you end up hating it.)

I suspect that many of these books are the fruit of members of book clubs and writers’ groups. I think both book clubs and writers’ groups are great, but I wish people would take more time to “sharpen the ax” before they start cutting down the tree.

This month’s good novels

I’ve also read some really great books this past month. The first was The Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri. She won a Pulitzer for this one. I’ve read other books of hers, and she is an outstanding writer. It is a total pleasure to read her. I generally don’t care for short story collections, but The Interpreter of Maladies is a happy exception. I strongly encourage you to get your hands on any of Lahiri’s books.

The biggest surprise this month was Anybody Out There, by Marian Keyes. Apparently, it’s the 4th book in a series, but the author does such a good job of weaving things together that I had no idea. I wasn’t confused for a minute, and none of the background information felt like a non sequitur. Some series can be confusing if you haven’t read them in order.

I was convinced the book would be just a fun romp, but I was happily mistaken. It’s very well-written, and it had me both on-the-floor laughing and tearing up. It’s both a sad and a hopeful book, and well worth your time if you are in the mood for a novel. I was blown away by how Keyes crafted each character and kept them consistent. The plot was realistic, and Keyes added just the right amount of caricature to some of the personalities to keep things hopping.

I don’t think men would enjoy this book.

I also finally read my first Ken Follett novel, Eye of the Needle. I’m a fan of spy thrillers, and enjoyed it on this level. The historical aspect of the novel (World War II, and the allied attempt to fool the Germans with regard to the D-Day landings) was fascinating, but I didn’t like many of the main characters.

Valuable writing advice from Ken Follett

As I was tooling around the internet for information on Ken Follett, I found a fascinating Masterclass on his website. It’s full of information about writing and publishing a novel. I don’t agree with everything he says about how to write a book, but there were some gems, which I will enumerate below.

One must keep in mind that even though Follett is a bestselling author, he’s no Jane Austen (who is, surprisingly, his favorite dead author; his favorite living authors are Stephen King, Richard North Patterson, and Lee Child, which has to tell you something). Nevertheless, here’s some great advice, especially for novelists:

The basics

The basic challenge for the writer can be very simply explained – it is to create an imaginary world and then draw the reader into that imaginary world.

I want to entertain you. I want you to be thrilled or moved to tears or scared and I definitely want you to be on the edge of your seat all the time, wondering what is going to happen next.

I’ve failed dreadfully if you have to read a sentence twice to figure out what I meant.

You can almost always find a way to improve just about every sentence that you’ve written.

Sharpening the ax

As an aspiring writer, you should certainly start by writing an outline…. The outline says chapter by chapter what happens in the book and it contains potted biographies of each of the characters.

It is far easier to correct your mistakes if you write an outline than if you sat down and wrote, ‘Chapter One’ at the top of a piece of paper and started writing.

Writing an outline also concentrates your mind. It is good to carry on reading a lot at this stage…. When you are reading other books, you will see how other writers have handled [your topic] and you’ll see the problem from different angles.

You should also show your outline to other people…it will be bruising if it’s going to be any use to you.

Writing the outline

A basic idea [i.e., what the book is about] is something that can be said in one sentence.

I write down my one sentence on a piece of paper and I try and make it two. I elaborate more and more…before too long I’ve got three paragraphs, a page, two pages and so on as I constantly rewrite and tease out the story.

I begin to imagine the people in the story, where they came from and what their motivations are. I think about how they will approach [a] problem.

[C]reate interesting characters and show how their lives are devastated by a series of events, how they fight against adversity and how they triumph.

[A]sk yourself questions all the time about these people that you have created and the problems they are confronted with…you must always ask…what are they afraid of?

[A]lways be aware of raising the stakes.

I finish up at the end of the [outline] process with between 25-40 typed pages [because he keeps elaborating on it]…. Typically there will be a first draft outline, a second draft outline and a final outline, so it would twice go through the process of being shown to a number of people.

The first draft

The toughest part of the whole process is going from the outline to the first draft…. Putting flesh on the bones is the hardest imaginative work in the whole process.

There is a rule which says that the story should turn about every four to six pages. A story turn is anything that changes the basic dramatic situation. It can change it in a little way or change it in a big way.

If you’ve got two story turns in four pages, you are going too fast and are not drawing the full drama and emotion out of each scene.

The second draft

When the first draft is complete, I show it once again to [other people]. I get them all to make notes.

I don’t edit my first draft. I don’t put the first draft on the screen at all…. I key every word in again because that forces me to reconsider every sentence.

Notice how the section entitled Writing the outline has the most nuggets, with The basics and Sharpening the ax tying for second. This is not a coincidence, and should tell you something about where you should be putting your energies before you type “Chapter One.”

***

In my next blog I’m going to revisit brackets. I’m currently working on a project that is bracket-challenged, and thought the issue begged reviewing.

And remember to let me know what else you’d like me to cover in future posts!

Until then,

Happy writing!

Deena

I’ve been wanting to review Grammarly.com for accuracy, helpfulness, and ease of use. How can it be so popular when almost every business blog I read is full of embarrassing writing mistakes and typos that reflect the writer’s apathy? In fact, so many blog owners actually come right out and say that writing mistakes don’t matter!

Nothing can take the place of a live human being writing raw and editing hard. However, Grammarly might be a worthwhile crutch aid when you’re just starting out and want to discover what Artificial Intelligence has to say about language and grammar.

With this in mind, I wrote the first draft of this post on the Grammarly app. Let’s see how I (and it) measure up.

User-friendliness

The Grammarly app itself is easy to use. For people with a free account, the app checks only spelling and critical grammar issues. Those with a Premium account ($12 per month if you pay yearly, $30 per month if you pay monthly) get a whole lot more, including the following:

advanced grammar check

insulting language check (LOVE this)

parallelism alerts

vocabulary enhancement suggestions

plagiarism detector

word choice suggestions according to genre

awkward words and sentences

checking for unnatural phrasing

The Grammarly app lets you set four categories: audience, writing style, emotion, and intent. I’ve set this post as being geared toward a general audience, with an informal writing style, and containing “mild” emotion. The intent of the post is to describe (as opposed to “inform,” “convince,” or “tell a story”).

How’m I doing?

Up to this point, my first draft scored between 91 and 98 percent (it changes frequently). This means that it was better than 91 to 98 percent of all other Grammarly users’ writing. On the Flesch reading scale, however, it scored only a 56, meaning it could be read by someone with at least a 9th-grade education. For a general audience/informal writing style/mild emotion/intent to describe-type article, the app says to aim for a Flesch score of between 60 and 70 – which gears it to the average 8th grader.

The additional writing issues Grammarly found in my first draft were word choice (3 violations) and wordy sentences (2). The only problem is that I have to get Premium in order to find out which words they want me to replace, and which sentences are too wordy! The app also suggested very politely to “consider adding a comma” after “Flesch reading scale” (see previous paragraph). Thanks, guys.

Stilted writing

I found that I was writing a bit unnaturally on the Grammarly app, as if I were looking over my shoulder, worried I’d write something Grammarly didn’t like. Obviously, that is no way to write; your piece won’t come out sounding normal, and your own unique voice won’t shine through.

One way to prevent this while you’re using the Grammarly app is to hide the Assistant function until you finish the entire piece. That way, you won’t constantly be checking your writing performance. You can enable it when you finish. Another way is to write your piece on a simple Word document, and copy and paste it into the Grammarly app after you’re done.

By the time I finished writing the first draft of this post, I was at 93 percent on the Grammarly text scale and 64 on the Flesch scale. I still had 2 unnaturally long sentences, but ended up with 5 word choice problems!

Grammarly also gave me 4 incorrect suggestions from the “alert” function, which I was able to flag as incorrect. Take that, O machine! Artificial Intelligence isn’t (yet) perfect, and honestly, I hope it never will be.

My final score

Everything you’ve read so far is the final draft of this post. I plugged it into the app, and I ended up with a score of 95 on the Grammarly scale and the same 69 on the Flesch reading scale. But I now have 8 “word choice” issues and was slapped this time with 3 wordy sentences.

Why Grammarly?

Grammarly could be a nice crosscheck for high school and college students, sort of like a sophisticated Spell Check. It might give a bit of reassurance before one’s essay or book report goes out into the big, wide world. It also might be a nice app for those who have a lot of business emails to write and are unsure of their spelling or grammar skills. Likewise, people for whom English is not their native tongue can get quick and dirty help. They might be able to save themselves embarrassment when trying to impress potential bosses or love interests.

But beware: All except one of the suggestions from the alert function turned out to be inappropriate (their word, not mine). For instance, “5 word choice problems” was flagged as needing a hyphen, as in: “5-word choice problems.” I might have word-choice problems, but I certainly don’t have choice problems that are 5 words long.

Another thing to think about is whether you want to engage with the original or the Cliff Notes. In today’s world, many if not most people would rather just barf anything out on the page and get the servant (i.e., Grammarly) to clean it all up. I despise this attitude, but acknowledge that it’s pretty prevalent and not worth the diatribe I was just about to deliver.

Worst case scenario

One of the fears I have with regard to Grammarly is that it will ultimately dumb down the youngest 2 or 3 generations even further than they’re already being dumbed down as we speak.

What’s more, I hate to think of Grammarly becoming the mandatory final station that everyone will stop at before their writing disembarks into the world. Will there eventually be a cessation of creativity, uniqueness, and choice? Would e.e. cummings score only 25 percent on the Grammarly scale? Is literature on track to becoming one gigantic Stepford wife?

For me, it’s also a moral issue. Like, why would someone want to stay mediocre? Doesn’t everybody want to master as many skills as possible – including excellent writing and perfect spelling and grammar? Wouldn’t you want to gear your diction to someone more sophisticated than the average 9th grader? It seems that the only skill some people want to master these days is how to be “good enough” with the least amount of exertion possible.

***

The thing is, I’m preaching to the choir.

You wouldn’t be reading my blog if you weren’t interested in being a better-than-just-mediocre writer. And I love you for it. I support you and admire you. You are swimming upstream in a sea of smooth sailors.

Keep up your excellence!! And keep reading my blog. You are part of the small but mighty tribe of those who want to be the best version of themselves. And remember,

I hope you’ve started the year off with a bang and not a whimper. My latest accomplishments: wrote a new weekly schedule with hubs and commissioned someone on Fiverr to create gorgeous slides for my course, “Wake Up Your Prose: Description Unpacked.” I’m really excited about launching the course, and I think you’ll be impressed with the professional design and the fabulous (if I do say so myself) content. And I promise great audio!

In the old beta course I had 60 slides, and in this new premium course I have over 160 slides, plus a lot of new material and expanded supplementary workbooks. If you take the course, I know you will see a marked improvement in your writing as a whole, and in your description skills specifically. You can get on the waiting list here (no obligation to buy). And watch out for launch details coming soon…

Tailor your schedule according to your needs

As far as my new schedule, I noticed that I haven’t been disciplined enough with my day. As a result, I’m not using my time as wisely as possible. Don’t get me wrong: I get A LOT accomplished, because I’m fast. But I need to work smarter, not harder – and certainly not faster.

As usual, hubs had to practically drag me to the couch and sit me down. First I wrote out everything I need to do in a week: freelance editing projects (including looking for more gigs), BulletproofWriting, exercise, emails, household stuff, spiritual stuff, finishing a course I’m taking, lunch, and leisure time.

One of the blogs I read and love suggests doing things in 90-minute time blocks. Since I need a lot of breaks as well (#undiagnosedADHD), my husband built them into my schedule. Basically, my day looks like this: work-break-work-lunch-work-break-work. On average, I’m working 6 hours a day. I’m finished every day by 4:00 pm, which means I have the entire late afternoon and evening to do whatever I want. I work Sunday through Thursday (Sunday is like Monday where I live), so if I’ve been “good,” I have Fridays off.

For some of you, a schedule such as this will work; for others of the non-ADD variety, you will be fine with longer work periods and will need fewer, and shorter, breaks. You might even be able to finish your workday earlier than I.

The bottom line is that it’s worth considering creating some sort of schedule for yourself, based on your personality, your responsibilities, and ability to sit for either long or short periods. Your schedule will evolve and you will need to tweak it, but just having something all prettily typed up and right in front of your face will be both calming and motivating.

Help is on the way

I came across two fantastic spreadsheets you can download for free, from Primoz Bozic, of the blog I love and mentioned above. One is called the Lean Review Dashboard, and in a nutshell it consists of doing a 20-minute assessment of what you want to achieve this year, building 3 milestone levels for each achievement, and doing a 2-minute review every week. It looks like it will be a lot of fun to use. The other is the Writing Tracker, which, unbelievably, tracks your writing. It includes columns such as date, length of writing session, mood, word count, and more. Both spreadsheets look really good, and I can’t wait to fit them into my new schedule!

Books I read

Guess what? I actually stopped reading a book in the middle! How liberating is that?

There’s no law that says we have to finish every book we start; I think it’s a throwback to our childhood, when our parents told us to finish everything on our plate, or made us finish our current knitting project before we could start a new one.

What I didn’t finish

The book I didn’t finish was The Piano Tuner, by Daniel Mason. Basically, it’s about a piano tuner who goes to Burma in 1886 to…wait for it…tune a piano. I was almost halfway through the d— (it means darn, I promise) book, and the protagonist was still in transit.

But it’s really my own fault for even opening the book in the first place, as I have a rule: If, anywhere on the cover, the book is described as “luminous,” run away as fast as you can.

What I did finish

The biggest winner I read since my last post was Charms for the Easy Life, by Kaye Gibbons. What a brilliant writer! It wasn’t a comedy, but I found myself intermittently laughing out loud to the point where I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds. Gibbons is so incredibly real. I’m almost positive I read and loved a couple of her other books about 20 years ago, and I’m definitely planning to get ahold of them at the used bookstore; they’ll be worth (re)reading.

The rest of my reading list these past 2 weeks has been pretty much a balance between good and good trash. The interesting thing is that I read 2 books by authors I love, but didn’t like the books. One was Welcome to Hard Times, by E. L. Doctorow (“good”) and the other was Surprise Me, by Sophie Kinsella (“good trash”). I found Welcome to Hard Times too cruel for my taste – I don’t deny that I’m in denial about how horrible the Wild West was; and I thought the plot of Surprise Me was kind of stupid. So many of these “lite” books revolve around a misunderstanding which threatens to destroy a relationship, but disaster is averted at the last minute and harmony reigns again. It’s a pity these authors can’t come up with a different conflict and denouement.

I also read The Snow Gypsy, a soon-to-be-released novel by Lindsay Jane Ashford. It wasn’t bad. The background of the book is the Spanish Civil War and its effects on those who lived through it. I’m fascinated by the Spanish Civil War, and now I’m eager to read more about it.

A book I read constantly

I was lucky enough to receive the latest edition of The Chicago Manual of Style as a gift (the result of an Amazon screw-up); it’s an editor’s most valuable resource. I’m enjoying having a hard copy version of it on my desk, and refer to it frequently. Their online edition is terrific, and is often but not always a time-saver. You can get a 30-day trial subscription to the online version here. The yearly subscription is $39. I believe that all writers should have this publishing bible close at hand.

***

Please let me know how setting your schedule went, and if you like to work in long or short blocks of time. Make sure you carve out a generous session for your daily writing!

Hey, it’s time for my break. I’d better get off the computer; hubs just got his whip out (not). Until next time,

Created by Rawpixel.com – Freepik.com

I hope you are keeping to your writing schedule now that it’s winter in the northern hemisphere and the end-of-the-year madness is in full swing – wait; you don’t have writing schedule? Oy!

Writers need to write.

It’s always best to write first thing in the morning, right after breakfast. That said, some people prefer the afternoons or evenings, so do what’s best for you. Regularity (the same time every day) and consistency (6 days a week) is what you’re aiming for.

How to create a realistic writing schedule

Start with 5 or 10 minutes, and work your way up to 15 or 20, then half an hour, then 45 minutes, etc. Find the right amount of daily writing that is comfortable for you and stick with it.

If you have no current project (called a WIP – work in progress), you could follow the Method Writing regimen, or simply write whatever comes into your head. Some writers do this even if they have a WIP, as it gets the creative juices flowing and frees their mind for concentrating on whatever project they’re currently working on.

Other writers prefer to write a certain number of words per day, and that’s fine, too. I’ve just written a bit more than 200 words, so you can see how small of a commitment that is. Start there, and work your way up, week by week, to 1,000 words a day or more. You will get faster as you go along.

If you’re currently working on a specific writing project, spend a bit of time at the end of each daily session outlining what you want to write about the next day. If you’re doing Method Writing, choose a topic for tomorrow. This way, you’ll be ready to spend your entire session writing and not trying to figure out what to write about.

Overstatement, understatement, and plain speaking

Honestly, I wasn’t that impressed with the cutesy language Clark sometimes used in the article (not only when he was demonstrating overstatement), and neither is Poynter to my taste. (And there was one egregious error in the essay. See if you can find it, and email me your answer.)

However, the article introduced me to Charles Edward Montague, British author, editor, and veteran of World War I. Montague wrote an essay called “Three Ways of Saying Things: Statement, Overstatement and Understatement,” and that essay is Clark’s jumping off point. As Clark says:

Know when to back off and when to show off.” To back off, especially when a message is inherently dramatic, may require a form of understatement. Permission to show off comes when the subject is quirky or surprising, inviting the writer to do a little dance…

Exaggeration vs. euphemism

Montague is a better writer than Clark, and the examples Clark includes from Montague’s writing are tight and descriptive. Montague Shows more than Tells; the excerpt about Word War I is incredibly visual. I also like what Montague has to say about overstatement. His analogies and clever use of words are worth reading the article for. Here’s one bit:

Almost every leader of an opposition, however talented, says of almost every big government bill which he has to oppose, that it is the most monstrous hash of crude and undigested proposals that he remembers in a long parliamentary experience….Nobody, speaker or hearer, thinks of believing these flourishes….It is all a form, a flourish, a figure of speech, and yet somehow it does serve a purpose, if only to convey a vague impression of robust and salutary trenchancy.

Other than for politics, why else do we have such a desire to be dramatic with overstatement and ironic with understatement (e.g., calling the Atlantic Ocean “the pond”)? Clark summarizes: “The overstater and the understater seem to crave more attention to an idea or bit of news than the item may deserve.”

What we can learn from this

Two lessons can be drawn from the article:

Be more discriminate in deciding whether a fact or statement is worthy of extra attention

Don’t be cute

Deliver the truth directly. This doesn’t mean you have to be boring and always use “to be” words and Tell, like, “World War I was a terrible war. There was a lot of mud and vermin in the trenches.” Use visual, industrial-strength words. Raise the bar on your verb choice. And for an amazing, one-paragraph description of what it was like in the trenches of World War I, read the article.

What I’m reading

These past two weeks I’ve read a bit of trash and also finished Warriors Don’t Cry, which I wrote about in my two previous emails. I didn’t love the book from a technical perspective, but the story is fascinating. I recommend the book, but not only because of the story. It’s also instructive to read books whose writing you don’t always enjoy, as it helps you be more discriminate in evaluating writing styles and abilities. And it’s helpful to learn to separate story from style.

I’ve just finished Kate Atkinson’s Started Early, Took My Dog. Wow; talk about good writing. She’s brilliant, but not for the fainthearted. Her plots are always quirky, and there’s “language,” so not everyone will like her. I hated the whole plot/theme of another book of hers, Life after Life, which I mentioned on my blog a few years ago, but the writing was so good that I ended up finishing the book anyhow. Life after Life is a good example of separating style from story.

I’m now in the middle of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, which is a classic detective novel. It was first published in 1929, and the writing is top-notch. Here’s a book that’s super well-written, even though it’s written in stylized, “tough guy” language. Hammett’s word choice is outstanding and the dialogue characterizes each speaker. The protagonist is so Humphrey Bogart; in fact that’s who played him in the 1941 movie.

The interesting thing about The Maltese Falcon is that it has all the “sex-drugs-and-rock-‘n’-roll” stuff that we’ve unfortunately come to expect in 99 percent of modern thrillers, but Hammett does it subtly and modestly. There are few, if no, gratuitous elements of any kind in this book.

Here’s how Hammett describes one of the bad guys using a popular insult on the protagonist:

The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second, “you.”

Is that totally brilliant or what? Talk about finesse and elegance!

***

Maintaining an uneven balance between overstatement, understatement, and just plain statement is one of the keys to lively, elegant, and tight writing. And this boils down to knowing how to use description effectively. Charles Edward Montague understood this; Charlotte Bronte and Kate Atkinson, among many other classic and modern writers, did too. Description is a prerequisite of good writing.

Soon I’ll be launching the completely redone, alpha version of my course, “Wake Up Your Prose: Description Unpacked.” Keep your eye on my emails, or sign up here to be the first to hear about it.

The reason you are reading this post is because I have run out of writing ideas.

What happens when the well goes dry?

There are all sorts of solutions to this problem. Let’s explore them together.

Write

Yes, yes, I know; how can you write when you have run out of ideas?

It is crucial that you write every day. This should be nonnegotiable. I will, however, give you one day off a week, so it’s really only six days a week. Here are some ideas to implement if you have no novel, short story, poem, or writing job on your plate:

Do Method Writing. Every day, take one small piece of your life – past, present, or even future – and write for 15 to 20 minutes. Describe an event and how you felt while you were experiencing it. Don’t worry; no one needs to read this. Then file it away for possible use in a future writing project.

Do free writing. Similar to Method Writing, take 15 to 20 minutes to just dump words on paper. Look at the clock on the wall and describe the second hand. Listen to the children playing outside and make up a story about one of them. Vent about your evil mother-in-law. Write about anything that comes to mind. Think stream-of-consciousness. Nothing has to make sense.

Write in longhand. Research has shown that writing in longhand has many benefits, not the least of which is peace of mind. Daily journaling has been shown to improve mood. You don’t necessarily have to journal if you choose to write in longhand; no matter what you write, you will release creative juices you might not experience from using a keyboard. Creative juices = writing ideas.

These three ideas are not exclusively for writer’s block or a dry well of ideas. Even you are working on a project, doing one of these for 15 to 20 minutes every single day will help get you started in the morning (or evening, or whenever you write). Think of them as warm-up exercises.

Read

Writers must read.

This is another nonnegotiable rule for authors of every stripe. Certainly have a book by your bedside table, and try to carve out a chunk of time every day just to read. Many writers are in the middle of several books. I am frequently in the middle of two physical books, one Kindle book, and a nonfiction volume I read only on the weekend. Each and every one holds a wealth of writing ideas.

You’re allowed one trashy novel, but make sure that the rest of your reading list consists of “good” books, old and new classics, history, philosophy, etc. I’m now reading Middlemarchand love it.

Be aware of other reading opportunities, too, such as magazines, newspapers, fliers, your cigarette package. You are bound to discover all sorts of ideas to write about. How about a story of Marlboro Man? Or why you hate the New York Times (doesn’t everyone?). Perhaps an advertisement for a lawn mower (human, not machine) will take you back to your salad days when you mowed lawns for pocket money.

And don’t forget that nonfiction is also full of wonderful, creative ideas to write about.

Stalk

Take a bus and eavesdrop on a conversation. Join a Facebook group and read what the other members are thinking about, talking about, preoccupied with. Slink around Quora or Reddit. Call your mother.

For more writing ideas, look at old photo albums. My husband and I infrequently look at the table pictures of our wedding. (Pro tip: tell your wedding photographer not to take any table pictures. You won’t remember who half the people are ten years down the line, and pictures of half-eaten food are gross.)

Google your favorite singer or actor and read about his or her exploits. Or Google something you’ve always been interested in but never took the time to learn about. There is so much material you can garner from a Google romp, for both fiction and nonfiction pieces. Keep a list of everything you want to learn more about, and choose one each time your metaphorical ideas database is empty.

Read obituaries. There’s a whole world of ideas and quirky vignettes inside these columns. A word, an episode, and list of family members can set off a whole chain of story events in your head – which you should immediately get down on paper.

Go away

There’s nothing like a nice jog or vigorous walk to clear your head and give your brain a break so it can once again fill up with things to write about.

Vacations are nice, too: new scenery, different people, and a change of pace are all excellent sources of idea fiber. (Don’t forget to write 15–20 minutes a day, even on vacation.)

Meet a friend for coffee, go to a museum, see a film, go ice skating or bowling (or observe those who are doing it). Go to the beach, take a train ride. There are so many writing opportunities waiting to be discovered! You don’t have to necessarily find an exact and detailed story to write, but just getting away from your desk will go a long way toward firing up those creative brain cells.

***

I’m interested in hearing other ways to prime your writing pump. Let me know in the Comments how you find ideas to write about. And of course,

Deena

It’s August, and the whole world seems to be on vacation. You might be, too, or at least wish you were.

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s hot. The kids are home. No one seems to be doing anything important. Southern Hemisphere readers are probably fed up with the miserable weather and wish it would be spring already.

It’s a tough time to write.

In light of this, I thought now would be a good time for a bit of inspiration and a kick in the pants. I’ve been collecting famous author quotes for the past few years, and I hope they will help keep you writing no matter what: rain or shine, snow or desert wind, school or vacation, employed or jobless, content or anguished. (And by the way, each of these descriptors can serve as the basis for a writing project!)

It’s also a good time to reread your favorite posts from Bulletproof Writing, so I’ve added lots of links below. And while you’re at it, encourage a friend or fellow writer to subscribe. Here’s a pre-populated email you can copy and paste:

Worth remembering

“Write about what you know” is the most stupid thing I’ve heard. It encourages people to write a dull autobiography. It’s the reverse of firing the imagination and potential of writers. – Kazuo Ishiguro (Read more about writing what you know and what you don’t know here, here, and here.)

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. – C.S. Lewis

The secret of it all is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment – to put things down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote – wrote, wrote. …By writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught. – Walt Whitman

If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it. – Toni Morrison

Practical advice

Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write fifty-two bad short stories in a row. – Ray Bradbury

Make your characters want something right away even if it’s only a glass of water. – Kurt Vonnegut

***

Which of these pieces of advice are the most valuable to you? Why? Which ones will you integrate into your daily writing habit? Let me know in the Comments. And as always,

A story of shoes

I went to one store, where I bought a pair of supposedly leather shoes. The salesperson swore up and down they were leather.

When I got home, I noticed a transparent sticker on the bottom of one of the shoes, and it said they were entirely synthetic.

The next day, I went with my husband to get my money back. Where I live, the buyer has 48 hours to return an item for a full refund. However, we had to yell, threaten, and take a picture of an illegal sign in the store (“No cash returns”) until they agreed to give me my money back – and then they made up some cockamamie story about how they can’t open the register until after the weekend.

I then went to another store down the street, bought another pair of house shoes, and after also having to exchange them for a smaller size a few days later (while the proprietors were hurling abuse at me), I now, finally, have shoes that I can actually wear.

Why am I telling you this?

Because these proprietors were more interested in making a sale than in serving their customers.

Nowadays, it’s all about the consumer. But this doesn’t mean we’re allowed to be nasty customers and vendors have to lick our boots.

A vendor must know exactly what he or she will and won’t do for a customer or client, but it can be done nicely and within the law. The consumer can express his or her requirements, and if the vendor can fulfill them, the consumer should expect to receive what they asked for.

Trust and integrity are the are the name of the game.

The professional writer and editor

The same is true with regard to professional writers, editors – and really any freelancer. Put a sign with the word “SERVICE” on your wall or computer; it will remind you of your raison d’être.

True, I’ve always said on this blog that writers have to write for themselves, and I still believe that. However, when you are being paid for your services, you need to serve. On the other hand, having work parameters allows you to write “for yourself,” while still fulfilling your clients’ needs.

Here are a few things you can do as a professional writer or editor in order to deliver outstanding product, while still protecting yourself.

Always have a contract

Please, people, don’t “feel bad” or “be embarrassed” about insisting on a contract. NO WORK should be done until you have set out in writing exactly what you will and will not be providing to your client. Be as detailed as possible.

You need dates and deadlines as well. This goes for both you and the client. For instance, if you are writing or editing an article, specify the date you will return the piece, the date the client must give it back to you with their corrections, and a date when you will hand in the finished product.

There should be monetary consequences for a client’s returning the piece late. I’m not even going to discuss your missing a deadline, because you can never let this happen.

Do not start to work until you get a deposit, somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of the estimated total cost of the project. Enumerate when the next payment(s) is expected, and how much you are to be paid. Generally, you should be paid either after you finish a draft or on a certain date. No work begins before you receive your initial deposit, and no work continues until you receive your incremental payment. Final draft is sent to the client only after final payment is received.

I know this is difficult, especially for women, but I cannot emphasize its importance enough. If it makes you feel any better, it’s still hard for me to do this.

Your responsibilities

You, too, have responsibilities to your client.

First of all, be nice. Even though this whole contract thing feels a bit tough – nay, cruel – you can do everything with a smile and an attitude of accommodation. Be positive.

Consider the following pre-contract proposal:

Here’s what I propose: If you can sign the contract and give me your guidelines/provide the manuscript by [date], I can write/edit X and send it back to you by [date]. If I receive the manuscript back from you with all queries answered by [date], I can give you a final draft on [date].

If you’d like me to also do Y, I’d be happy to do it for an additional $___.

Included in my package are two versions of the final copy: one with tracking and a clean one without. All queries will be in comment bubbles.

I will also provide you with a style sheet at no additional cost.

You’ll hear from me every week/day/ten days with a progress report. And of course, please feel free to contact me any time with questions or concerns.

Once you get the gig and have delineated what you and the client are each responsible for, write up a contract with all this information and get it signed, or at least approved in writing via email.

Other ways to serve your client

Make sure you understand exactly what the client wants

If you have a writing assignment, how many words? If you’re editing someone else’s work, what kind of editing does the author desire: just a quick eyeballing, a copy edit, a language edit, or an in-depth, line-by-line editing job? For both writers and editors, who is the audience: age, gender, secular or religious, etc.? Ask the client for the demographics, as you won’t want to use the word “ubiquitous” in a book for young children, or allow a curse word if the article is for a church publication.

Make sense

The work should be as perfect as you can make it, within the time frame you and the client have worked out. Cross your t’s and dot your i’s, and remember your grammar and spelling. If you’re writing, self-edit before you turn it in (see the following 5 articles for details: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). If you’re editing, make the author look good by giving them a comprehensible manuscript in their own voice.

Make a style sheet

Your clients will love you for this. Unless you have been given a set of guidelines by your client, write down every ambiguous word or “rule” you run into or make up. For example, how are you going to spell Ann? Or Anne? or Ayn? Will it be “God, Who told Noah to build the Ark,” or God, who told Noah to build the Ark”? Or is it “ark”? If you’ve been given a style sheet by your client, create a new document comprising any new words, phrases, or rules, and send it along with your piece.

If you are working on fiction, it is essential to write down every single detail: names, dates, places, and relationships. I have read several semi-professional books where the name of Martha’s sister is Joan in chapter 1 and Bonnie in chapter 6. Moreover, if the book takes place in Hawaii during the month of August, you cannot say, “The next day it snowed, so we couldn’t go to school.” Whether you are writing or editing, go that extra mile and hand in a style sheet.

Take pride in your work

No matter what you are working on, be it a novel, a board book for two-year-olds, a memoir, or a how-to book on growing your own mushrooms, treat each project as if it’s the most important thing ever written. You’ll feel good about yourself, your client will think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, and you’ll get many more jobs from happy clients or their friends and colleagues.

I’ll close here with a wonderful article I read recently. This amazing woman elevated the obituary column of the New York Times to an art form. There is much to learn from her.

***

Have I missed anything that relates to serving your client? If I have, please add it in the Comments. And no matter what you are currently working on, I wish you

[Missed the first two posts on self-editing? You can read them here and here.]

Every author needs an editor.

But that’s not an excuse to throw a manuscript at an editor without first taking the time to go over it yourself with a fine-tooth comb.

When you’ve read your piece what feels like a million times, and you swear that it’s ready…

read it one more time.

And then read it again. If you’ve done a final read-through for technical issues, then do this last one for contextual issues, and vice versa.

There are many reasons for doing a last read-through of your article or manuscript before submitting it to an editor. And yes, I do mean even after you’ve read it six or seven times. We’re going to explore them in this post.

Submitting to a paid editor

Once you’ve done your final read-through(s), you are ready to send your piece or manuscript to an editor for editing.

Huh?

A paid editor is your first stop after you write “Final” on your work. He or she will fix up your prose, making it tighter and more readable – and giving it a better chance of being read by an audience and/or accepted for publication.

Why you need an editor even if you did a final read-through

You need an editor because you must always have a second pair of eyes on your manuscript. You are much too close to it to see all the issues.

Some editors will fix up technical issues such as spelling and grammar, and some will do more of a conceptual edit. Some will do both, but they’ll probably have to go over your piece twice. We usually label those who work on technical issues “copy editors,” but don’t get hung up on titles. For argument’s sake, however, think of the difference between a copy editor and an editor as like the difference between a math major and an English major. It’s two different types of brain power, and not every editor can do both.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your sister’s mother-in-law’s upstairs neighbor’s cousin can “edit” your manuscript because she studied English in college, or because she edited the school newspaper when she was in the 12th grade.“Qualifications” such as these do not an editor make.

On the other hand, one doesn’t need to have been an English major in order to be a good editor; it’s a combination of skill and gift. But one does have to be a professional editor. I happen to have been an English major, but I am definitely an exception to the rule. Some of the best editors I know majored in semiotics, linguistics, math, accounting, international relations, actuarial science, European history, and law.

Why you need to reread your work before you send it to your editor

It’ll be cheaper. If your editor has to do your dirty work, such as making sure all commas are inside the quotation marks or checking spelling consistency (biblical or Biblical? Marc or Mark?), you are wasting their time and taking their attention away from big-picture questions like, “Does this sentence make sense?”

Your editor will be able to spend more time on the content. Money aside, grammar and spelling mistakes fill up an editor’s head space. If you want someone to correct these more “technical” issues, then hire a copy editor in addition to an editor.

You will find new mistakes. Believe me, there will always be a super-embarrassing gaffe for you to find during the last read-through, and now is your time to catch and fix it.

I must admit, I originally wasn’t going to include #3 in my list, as I was concerned it would only generate the ODD in all of us. So listen up: There comes a time when you need to let go of your manuscript. You will always find new mistakes and you can always think of a new way to say something, but you must know when to stop, click Save, and write Final on your document.

Submitting to a publisher

If you are submitting a manuscript or article to a publisher, there are a few other reasons to give your piece a final read-through besides finding that one doozy of a mistake:

You will definitely have a better chance of your work being accepted if all the t‘s are crossed and all the i‘s are dotted. As I’ve said before on this blog, unless you’re J. K. Rowling – or even Daniel Silva – acquisition editors will not tolerate a manuscript or article with technical mistakes. Think of it from the editor’s point of view: poorly edited and typo-ridden manuscripts feels to an editor like the author simply couldn’t be bothered (or worse, doesn’t know how to write). So why should the editor bother publishing it?

When I did acquisitions at a publishing house, I also rejected books where it was clear the author never went over his or her book more than once or twice. Some didn’t take the time to get rid of spelling or punctuation mistakes – or even to make sure each sentence ended with a period, question mark, or exclamation point. And don’t get me started on their cover letters.

2. An editor receives too many submissions to bother with something that makes no sense. Or is unrealistic. Or unclear. After you have read your piece one last time for technical mistakes, read it one last time for clarity: Does it say what it’s supposed to say? If it’s fiction, are the characters well-drawn and is the story consistent and believable? Is the dialogue true-to-life? If it’s nonfiction, is your thesis well-set out and provable? Does it hold your interest? Read things aloud if you have to.

If all else fails…

While I am a strong advocate for an author’s attention to detail, I do understand that some of you are more “forest” than “tree” types, and checking punctuation, grammar, etc. isn’t your thing. Here are three suggestions:

Make it your thing, at least for the time it takes you to go over your work.

Sorry for nagging, guys, but this was important. There’s nothing like a final read-through (or two) AFTER you’ve self-edited according to the guidelines I set out in my first two self-editing posts – which you can read here and here.

Yes, it’s a pain in the neck, but it’ll be worth it when you receive your acceptance letter and a bunch of praise about your writing ability.

Are there any other points to look out for, either during the final read-through or while you’re editing your own work? Let me know in the Comments. And, as always,

You read some article or post (such as this one, this one, or this one) about getting consistently motivated to write. You get all fired up, plan a new schedule, and turn over a new leaf with the greatest intentions.

Things are going pretty well. You’re writing every day, and meeting your time or word quotient. You even start getting a bit smug. Ha – you cracked the writing code!

Then one of four things happens:

Life.

Work.

Boredom.

Fear.

A kid gets sick, a holiday comes around. You get a freelancing job you hate, or you’re writing a story or article that sucks all the confidence out of you. Writing suddenly takes so long, and you realize that along the way it stopped being fun.

You can’t seem to get yourself up in the morning. Or you keep getting up from your computer to eat another piece of chocolate or make another cup of tea. You forget why you wanted to become a writer, and you start thinking: “Why make life harder for myself than it already is?”

The myth of inspiration

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you probably already know that I am not an advocate of waiting for inspiration to write. I recommend just showing up, every day.

That is so not romantic, I know. But it really is the only way to be a writer. “Inspiration,” if there really is such a thing, comes while you’re in the trenches, writing away even if you don’t want to.

If you have a light bulb moment – an idea for an article, or a phrase you might be able to tease into a short story – for goodness’ sake, write it down in a dedicated notebook or in an app such as Evernote.

But don’t mistake a good idea with “inspiration.” Get those ideas down, but continue your daily writing as if they never emerged.

Motivating yourself to be motivated

To be perfectly honest, I also don’t believe in motivation. This is possibly because I have none.

Don’t tell anyone, but the only thing I’m motivated to do is drink tea, eat chocolate, and read.

Paradoxically, I have a strict wake-up time, and generally, as soon as my alarm rings I jump out of bed and go directly into the bathroom.

bandrat for freedigitalphotos.net

And that’s when the little red man with pointy ears and a pitchfork jumps onto my left shoulder and whispers, “Oh, come on, just go back to bed. You’re exhausted, and what does it matter if you start an hour later?”

The little white man is still sleeping, and he hasn’t yet landed on my right shoulder. In fact, I haven’t seen him in a while…

No lie: I have this exact conversation with the red man every. single. morning.

And then I go back to my bedroom, turn on the light, and start getting dressed. I’ve accepted the fact that the little red man will do this every single weekday without fail. Like lower back pain, I live with him.

There is no magic pill

And how I wish there were. Think how popular my blog would be if I had a pill to give you.

In lieu of drugs, there is but one solution to the “inspiration-motivation” issue, and here it is:

Don’t think.

I kid you not. Just do. Know the night before exactly when you will get up the next morning, and what you will do from hour to hour. And then do it mindlessly. Pretend you’re in the army and your schedule is your sergeant.

When I had a bout of insanity was getting up to run at 5:00 in the morning, three times a week, for almost a year, turning off my brain was the only way I could do it. (And anyway, who can think at 5:00 in the morning?)

Apply this to any activity, and it will get you closer to your goal.

Goals vs. consistency

Goals are essential, but don’t start worshiping them. It’s more important to be consistent. In other words,

Show up every day.

As I wrote in a recent post, articulate your goals. However, never allow them to become an excuse not to do. Don’t say to yourself, “I’ve forgotten why I’m doing this, so until I remember, I’ll just get another cup of coffee.”

When things get tough and you start to think, go ahead and ponder your goals. I used to do this at the beginning of my runs, when I hadn’t yet warmed up and was freezing to death. My micro goal was to finish the run without collapsing or getting mugged, and my macro goal was to run a 10K in the Jerusalem Marathon.

On the other hand, when I couldn’t care less about why I was running and thought, “Who am I kidding?” (actually, I thought, “Whom am I kidding?”), I would fall back on, “I run three times a week.” In other words, I was just showing up, being mindlessly consistent.

A few nice clichés

Here are four phrases hanging on the wall in back of my computer. Take your pick:

What I want is bigger and more important than the fear that prevents me from achieving it.

Putting systems in place

Creating systems makes it easier for you to write no matter what is going on in your life or in your head, because systems eliminate choice. Same leitmotif: The less you think about the noise, the easier it will be for you to act.

Here’s a wonderful post by Ramit Sethi about creating systems. You might not need to go to the extreme that he articulates, but there are some golden nuggets there. (Swear word alert.)

***

While I hope you never run out of “motivation” or “inspiration” to write, remember that at best you don’t need them, and at worst they don’t even exist. Write, don’t think; show up every day; kick that red man off your shoulder; sit down and feel your fear – and write anyway.

Are you experiencing a writing low after an initial spurt of motivational energy? Let this post help you take action in spite of all the obstacles. And let me know in the Comments what worked.

You get to the computer first thing in the morning, excited that you have six uninterrupted hours to get everything done: make a dent in your freelance work, add a chapter to your memoir, do your daily Method Writing, answer emails…

What’s first?

How long for each task?

When’s lunch?

Oy, the phone’s ringing.

When I started this blog, I knew I’d have to revamp my day. I got up at 6:00 every morning. My workday started at 7:30. Some days I’d work on my latest freelance project for two hours, and then leave the house for another job. Other days I worked at home, changing tasks every two hours.

I found that working every day on each project for a relatively short amount of time was in keeping with my energetic personality. I even wrote a blog post about it.

What happened when everything fell apart

I recently took three months off from one of my part-time jobs, and as June 1st rolled around I started panicking: how was I ever going to get everything done once I started back at the office?

The leave of absence helped me to concentrate on this blog as well as complete a few freelance projects, but I can’t in good conscience say that I was consistently organized and did the same thing at the same time every single day. Many times I felt as if I were spinning my wheels, never really focusing on anything to the exclusion of everything else.

And sneaking in a few chapters of whichever novel I was currently reading was not exactly helping either.

I knew I could not continue at this frenetic pace of switching tasks every two hours, putting in a load of laundry between paragraphs, and answering “urgent” emails.

iosphere for free digital photos.net

Now to be fair to myself, I do get a lot accomplished in 24 hours, and have had a lot of successes in my life. I’m also very fast, and capable of multitasking even though it’s inefficient and bad for you.

My husband, who is super-focused and -disciplined, has been offering to help me create a weekly schedule for the past…how long have we been married?

Joke. But the truth is that I have been resisting his organizational advances for months.

By the last week in May I was in full panic mode, and I knew something had to change. I finally agreed to have my husband help me. One evening, I stuffed pen and paper into my purse, dragged him to a bar (I had mint tea and vegetables; I am not making this up), and watched him sip his beer and work his magic.

90-second (I promise) goal-setting

The first thing I realized was that my lack of boundaries was preventing me from getting closer to my work goals, which are…

Huh?

I had no idea what my work goals were.

Here’s what I came up with:

to work a certain, set number of hours per week on each project.

to have very little or no work time in the evening.

to have leisure time for reading trashy novels well-written fiction and nonfiction.

not to work on Fridays (my husband’s suggestion)

Lesson learned: You need to have at least a loose goal before creating a schedule. And it takes about a minute and a half.

Once I articulated (and actually wrote down) my goals, I asked myself some questions:

Should I get out of bed later and start later – or get up earlier and start earlier? Or continue getting up at 6:00 am?

Should I have a “daily theme,” or divide my day into several 2-hour task windows?

How much time should I give to my blog? My in-house projects? The editing job that requires me to go to an office?

I discovered that I had been way too rigid about how many hours I had to devote to certain tasks. My husband assessed my goals and my clients’ needs/demands, and suggested I try some new ideas and adjust as necessary. He was able to think outside my self-created box and visualize something different.

Lesson learned: Be flexible, and believe that there’s always more than one way to look at a problem.

My new weekly schedule

Here’s what we came up with (Sunday is a regular day where I live):

Basically, my husband cleaned out my work time to be work time only, carved out four long but doable chunks of work, and gave me several shorter chunks for lesser tasks and longer-term projects.

Two years ago, I wasn’t ready to buy in to the idea of working longer chunks at a time and actually counting the hours I work on each project, but by the time I entered that bar and sat down with my husband, I was prepared to trying something new.

Lesson learned: It’s okay to ask for help. Someone who isn’t you is more objective; you’re too emotional about it and can’t see the big picture.

The tension between boundaries and flexibility

Above I wrote to be flexible, and know there’s always more than one way to look at (or solve) a problem.

However, what if you are too flexible?

That’s my issue; I haven’t been strict enough.

Having boundaries is not only about getting up in the morning and starting to work, I would argue that it’s more about knowing when to finish each task.

It’s easier for me to start a task than to stop working on it for the day. If I have a lot of loose ends to tie up, it makes me crazy to just leave them for the next time I work on that project.

My husband – let’s call him Francis – made it clear that if I wanted to meet my goals I had to be more strict about starting on time and ending on time.

As I’m still working on this, Francis has given me a large lunch break twice a week (and a lunch break at my out-of-house job), which I can shorten if I go a bit too long on the morning’s task or simply had to take that phone call from my daughter. This has helped me to keep my afternoon schedule more or less intact.

Right now I’m working on sticking to my project boundaries in order to use some of this lunch time for between-project exercise and mini-breaks.

Lesson learned: You must start on time and end on time, but be sure to pad your schedule with transition time.

It’s not just about keeping to the schedule

Speaking to my kids in the middle of the workday notwithstanding, I’ve had to make stricter boundaries with myself and others. Therefore, during work hours:

No social phone calls

No social media

No email

No answering phones unless it’s a family member

No doing laundry

No kitchen work

Lesson learned: It’s not as hard as you think.

If you’re worried you’ll never be able to stay off social media during your work time, try Freedom, a free app that blocks Internet for however long you decide. I like it, and have discovered that after a while I don’t need it anymore, as I have developed a rhythm to my work.

Time to get serious about your writing

If you’re a writer – professional, avocational, hobbyist, whatever – you must find time to write.

Sit down with someone this week and set your writing and/or work goals. How many hours/words are you going to write each and every day? What other projects are on your plate? What are your priorities?

Let your partner then help you carve out a schedule that works for you.

Experiment with “daily themes,” in which you work half a day on one project, or try to create smaller work periods for each of two or three different tasks. Or mix and match, like I did, with a daily major project and one or two minor tasks after lunch.

If you’re a night owl, you might want to adjust your schedule to reflect this. I’m super-focused and alert in the morning, which is why I do my hardest and most important tasks then.

If you’re still not convinced of the importance of a daily routine, read this.

A couple of offbeat ideas

I find that eating more protein helps me avoid the ten o’clock and two o’clock slumps (am I the only one who gets two a day?). Since I started a new diet, both slumps have disappeared – instantly, I might add.

Deadlines are great, but what if you don’t have any? Perhaps you journal, or you’re putting together a memoir for yourself, or maybe you’re writing a novel but don’t yet have an agent to breathe down your neck.

Try making your own deadline, or find an accountability partner. Give someone a signed check to send to your least favorite charity if you don’t fulfill your writing quota or finish that book by X date.

Although this never worked for me, perhaps bribing yourself with something will work for you. (I used to bribe myself with chocolate, but always found some excuse to eat it anyway.)

Buy yourself a nice diary such as a Moleskine, or just print something out from the Internet! You can even use Google Calendar – whatever. A diary works for me as an auxiliary schedule because I like writing down everything I need to do tomorrow, the night before.

***

Life is dynamic, and priorities change. Right now I’m happy to use my new schedule, but perhaps in a few months I’ll take on fewer freelance jobs and devote even more time to this blog. As important as it is to stick to a schedule, nothing is ever written in stone. Try to find the balance that works for you.

I can’t wait to hear from you! Tell me about your new writing/work schedule in the Comments, or shoot me an email; you can even show me a copy of your new weekly regimen.

Hi, I’m Deena Nataf

I’m a book and journal editor with thirty years of experience in the field. If you write to publish, I want to help you get that first draft written, that manuscript finished, and that book out the door. If you write for yourself, I’ll give you the tools you need to write clearly, write regularly, and write in your own voice. But no matter why you write, I’m passionate about helping you make your mark on the world.